The Role of Public Lands in a Low-Carbon Economy

Author(s): Christopher S. Galik, Joseph L. Grinnell, David M. Cooley

Published: March 2010

download: working paper (.pdf) >

Public lands have the potential to make significant contributions to climate mitigation objectives and are likely to play an important role in comprehensive climate policy. Existing legislation and regulations provide broad authority for public lands to contribute to carbon sequestration, emission avoidance, and biomass production objectives. Introducing new climate policy objectives, however, requires balancing with other objectives, such as endangered species preservation, recreation, protection of soil and water resources, grazing, timber harvesting, energy production, and natural resource extraction.